The Criterion Collection

Film Comment Selects, the annual festival showcasing the magazine’s editors’ selections of works of underappreciated cinema, past and present, from around the world is currently going strong at New York’s Walter Reade Theater at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. One of the showcased filmmakers this year is Jean-Pierre Gorin, whose three unorthodox documentaries Poto and Cabengo, My Crasy Life, and Routine Pleasures, all of which are included in our latest Eclipse series, will show back-to-back on February 26.

Another director in the spotlight this week is Whit Stillman. In anticipation of the release of his latest feature, Damsels in Distress, on April 6, the Harvard Film Archive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is showing Stillman’s previous films, including the erudite comedies Metropolitan (February 24) and The Last Days of Disco (February 26); the director will appear in person for both screenings.

There’s a wealth of other screenings this week across North America. Viewers at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts can wander through the Michelangelo Antonioni landscape of Red Desert (March 1). Brooklyn’s BAMCinematek digs in with Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (February 28) and investigates Bertrand Tavernier’s Coup de torchon (February 29). Also in New York, Wim Wenders’s Paris, Texas aches at the Rubin Museum of Art (February 24), and Jacques Becker’s Casque d’or glistens at French Institute Alliance Française (February 28). Just outside the city, at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York, Jeanne Moreau charms in both Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows (February 24, 26, and 29) and Becker’s Touchez pas au grisbi (February 25 and 27), plus Terry Gilliam whisks audiences away with Time Bandits (February 25 and 26). As part of the West Orange Classic Film Festival, Jane Campion’s debut Sweetie plays at the AMC Theatre at Essex Green Shopping Center in West Orange, New Jersey (February 26). Ithaca’s Cornell Cinema takes a ride on Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited (February 24) and a spin with Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (February 26 and 27). The AFI Silver in Silver Spring, Maryland, gets dystopic with Gilliam’s Brazil (February 25 and 28 and March 1), as does the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., when it shows Chris Marker’s La Jetée as part of a series of films constructed from still photographs (February 25). And Jean-Luc Godard goes pop at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh with Masculin féminin (February 24).

Red Desert blazes again up at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio (February 28). Ernst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise steals laughs at the Detroit Film Theatre (February 25). In Chicago, Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest becalms the Gene Siskel Film Center (February 25 and 27), and Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing rouses the Music Box Theatre (February 25 and 26). Josef von Sternberg’s The Scarlet Empress makes for a royal weekend at the Trylon in Minneapolis (February 24–26). The Denver Film Center raises a lot of questions with Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad (February 25). Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le cercle rouge is the loot at the Salt Lake Film Society (February 24–March 1). In Seattle, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes appears at the Grand Illusion Cinema (February 24–March 1), the Maysleses’ Grey Gardens is the best choice for the day at Central Cinema (February 24), and Jules Dassin’s Thieves’ Highway (February 24) and Preston Sturges’s Unfaithfully Yours (February 28) get the SIFF Cinema at the Uptown into some criminal behavior. Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring bursts forth at the Aero Theatre in Los Angeles (March 1). And Antonioni’s L’avventura gets beautifully lost at the CSUN Cinematheque in Northridge, California (March 1).

Looking over the northern border: Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear sweats it out at Vancouver’s Pacific Cinematheque (February 24–27 and 29). Toronto’s TIFF Lightbox brings the Bresson with Au hasard Balthazar (February 26 and March 1), Mouchette (February 29), and Pickpocket (March 1). And Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Mamma Roma bares its soul at the Calgary Cinematheque (March 1).

Overseas, Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante finally sets sail from a long dock at London’s BFI Southbank after a few more screenings (February 24–29), and also drops anchor nearby at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, alongside Vigo’s Zéro de conduite (February 24 and 25). Also at BFI Southbank this week: Godard’s Vivre sa vie (February 26). Meanwhile, little Ana Torrent haunts Edinburgh’s Filmhouse with Carlos Saura’s Cría cuervos . . . (February 29). In Lausanne, the Swiss Cinematheque shows off some impressive moves with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes (February 25). In Stockholm, the Swedish Film Institute gets devilish with Benjamin Christensen’s Häxan (February 26) and absurd with Luis Buñuel’s The Phantom of Liberty (March 1). In Brussels, the Belgian Cinematek goes from the French 1930s, with Sacha Guitry’s The Story of a Cheat (February 26) and Jean Renoir’s Boudu Saved from Drowning (February 29), to the French 1960s and the New Wave, with Godard’s Contempt (March 1), and the New York 1980s, with Do the Right Thing (March 1). In Lyon, the Institut Lumière finds L’avventura (February 24–26 and 28) and René Clément’s Gervaise (February 26). Robert Altman’s politically satiric miniseries Tanner ’88 hits the campaign trail, stopping at the Cinémathèque française in Paris (February 27 and 29 and March 1) and Vienna’s Austrian Film Museum (February 29)—Altman’s 3 Women also turns up in Vienna (March 1), as do two Preston Sturges classics, The Lady Eve (February 25) and Sullivan’s Travels (February 26). In Zurich, Eric Rohmer’s My Night at Maud’s chats it up at Filmpodium (February 24, 25, and 27).

Finally, viewers at the Jerusalem Cinematheque can take off with Godard for Breathless (February 24) and Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, and Benoit Poelvoorde’s Man Bites Dog (February 24). The Lady Eve disarms audiences with laughs at the Slovenska Kinoteka in Ljubjana, Slovenia (February 29). And Wenders’s Wings of Desire touches down at the Melbourne Cinematheque (February 29).